The video above broke yesterday, featuring – finally – the animated dance that the female Worgen will get in Cataclysm. Who is it from? Yup – it’s Lady Gaga.

We’ve long been reporting that female Worgen animations simply haven’t been finished and are some of the last things that will likely be ready for the expansion, but here we are with the double-dose of the video above showing off their dance (which is pretty sharp, I might add) and the news that they’re available to play in the beta and the dance is in the beta as well, so if you don’t believe your eyes when watching the video above, you can roll one now and give it a try yourself!

This video, Mafioso Swing, was first-runner up in the Blizzcon 2010 Machinima Contest. This is the video that a number of people think should have won and taken the first place prize. I have to admit, it’s a pretty hilarious musical number, and probably one of the first great videos we’ve seen that feature the Goblins in all of their animated glory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FOpI0EsQ8A

The video previously mentioned, The Rocket of Love, took the Grand Prize in the Blizzcon 2010 Machinima Contest. This video, I Am Forsaken was the second runner up. The story is pretty typical as these videos go, a once human finds himself in tragic circumstances and eventually winds up on the other side of the line as an undead. Still – the way the machinima was made is brilliant and the video looks stunning. It’s no wonder most people I’ve seen think this video should have taken top prize – it’s heartfelt and evocative.

This lovely lady was at Blizzcon 2010 and I wasn’t. You can imagine how sad that makes me. Aside from the fact that she’s attractive though, look at that Ghost costume! Ghosts are the immensely powerful psychic stealth operatives and assassins in the Terran Military in the StarCraft series of games, and her costume is spot on from just about every detail, from the glowing eyes to the gun to the glowing costume. I can’t imagine how long it took her to make it.

You can check out more pictures of the costume and the detail on the gun (seriously, it’s actually a Nerf gun) over at Unreality Magazine. Trust me, it’s worth it, even if it’s just for you to get some ideas on what you’d like your Ghost costume to look like.

Okay, even I’m not enough of a lore freak to have paid attention to this much detail from the books and the game combined, but holy wow this guy is, and this guy has. He has probably the singular most incredibly nerdy (and I really do mean that in a good way) question to ask that I’ve ever seen at a convention or in a panel, and well…you can see the results. I don’t want to spoil it for you.

A pretty epic post over at the official forums is reminding us that Deathwing isn’t planning to make his re-emergence into Azeroth a one-time, forget-about-it deal. He’s serious about this whole “destruction far and wide” thing. Quoth the Zarhym:

One of Azeroth’s oldest adversaries will soon tear through the Elemental Plane to reforge the world in flame, but this foe won’t be conducting his reign of terror from the confines of a castle or lair. Deathwing is a destructive force the likes of which adventurers have yet to see in World of Warcraft, and his appetite for devastation can only be satisfied by the shattering of the world. Following his explosive escape from Deepholm, Deathwing will cast a deadly shadow over the people of Azeroth as he wreaks indiscriminate havoc across the land.

Once free to terrorize the world, Deathwing will randomly choose territories in Azeroth to attack each day until his ruinous reign is brought to an end. A blackened sky will be the only warning before every living creature caught in his approach is consumed by his terrible fire. The unfortunate victims of his malice will receive a rare Feat of Strength… as well as a repair bill and corpse run.

When Deathwing returns, you’d best keep your eyes on the skies.

Apparently Deathwing isn’t messing around, and some of the video footage out there already proves the point – if you’re in the path of fire when he comes by torching your zone, you can kiss your ass goodbye. But hey – you get an achievement!

It’s a cute little story of a gnome who wakes up one morning, walks to his window, and see the most lovely sight he ever could possibly see…and then hilarity ensues.

I have to hand it to Mushanga, the creator of the video, for taking home the grand prize – a lot of people have complained that the other entries were better, and we’ll see as I post those over the coming days – but sometimes there’s something to be said for simplicity, elegance, lack of flare and false flask, and…well…gnomes. Enjoy!

One piece of news that may have slipped under the radar in the furor over Blizzcon is the fact that the winners of the 2010 Blizzard Global Writing Contest have been announced! Click the link above to see the winners – unfortunately the winning piece hasn’t been published just yet.

We last mentioned the contest back in June, and want to congratulate all of the finalists and ultimately the winner who’ll have the honor of being invited to Blizzard for a tour of the facility and a sit-down chat with Chris Metzen himself to discuss lore and storywriting.

The winner also gets to take home a Frostmourne replica or a Barbarian statue from Diablo III, and each of the finalists gets signed copies of each of the major Blizzard lore books: The Diablo Archive, StarCraft Archive, Warcraft Archive, and the Warcraft: War of the Ancients Archive. Congratulations!

So Blizzcon this year has come and gone, and not without some pretty big announcements. While there was nothing seriously earthshattering that we didn’t expect, the con did give the community some new ways to interact with Blizzard developers, outed the fact that we’ll see some new music from Blizzard soon (and in-game music will be available to buy as sheet music, too!) Cataclysm is going to be as epic as everyone thought it would be, and there are even more changes in store for us very soon.

What did you think? What are some of your takeaways from Blizzcon 2010? Let us know what you thought of the show – even if you didn’t go – in the comments!

If you weren’t sure whether or not the Worgen were going to be awesome, and you were curious about what the Worgen starting experience was going to be like, there’s a little news for you out of Blizzcon – the video above is the Worgen cinematic, in all of its wonderful glory.

The humans of Gilneas are very Victorian; as opposed to the medieval/renaissance style of the humans of Stormwind; it’s interesting to see how they’re all shaping up ahead of the release of the game.

Revealed at Blizzcon today, this is the new login screen once Cataclysm is released and installed, featuring a very angry Deathwing perched atop a well-torched and crispy Stormwind.

The login music has been changed, of course, and one of the tidbits we’ve picked up from word out of the Blizzcon music panel is that the Stormwind theme has been reworked (finally!) to be a bit more mournful and tragic, which makes sense considering where Deathwing’s first stop after breaking free was.